– after all these years

Being nostalgic to the point of the ridiculous might just happen to get somewhat in the way when you’re leaving a country after 11 years. But hey – you decided to move away, you deal with the freaking nostalgia!

The best way to deal with it is obviously to embrace it. There’s a last time for everything. When that time comes, you’d better embrace that nostalgia, because it’ll pop up most everywhere. Buying your last family pack of toilet paper at the hypermarket you usually dread going to. Walking down a particular street, the one lined with ugly houses now with a fresh coat of nostalgia. Dealing with the cranky lady at the post office – oh, you’ll miss her after all! Filling up your car for the last time, your Little Blueberry that’s been so incredibly loyal to you for all of those years.

And then you get nostalgic about the things you suddenly realise you already have done for the last time without reflecting upon it, wondering if you should maybe try to do them one more time, proper goodbyes… that sort of thing. And then you rack your brain for things you need to do one last time or they’ll come back to haunt you once you’ve moved.

Seriously, why get nostalgic about every little often boring and/or annoying taken-for-granted thing? Why this need for kicks of nostalgia? Because those things made up the everyday life you’re about to change. They established patterns, habits and security in a place that was once completely unfamiliar to you. And sometimes there’s something behind the sheer action, more to the story, some emotions – more or less comprehensible or noticeable. That – and the fact that you are indeed ridiculously nostalgic.

Nostalgia is a way to prepare; for the farewells and the changes to come. But then again, “if you never stop when you wave goodbye, you just might find if you give it time you will wave hello again”. These words from John Mayer’s Wheel were just given to me by a friend who also waved goodbye and might wave hello again.

Every street light reveals a picture in reverseStill it’s so much clearer